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The sky was red.
This wasn’t normal.
Nearly nothing was normal these days. U.A. High was cast in a concrete and iron exoskeleton, a fortress rather than a school. The surrounding city was broken and disheveled, rebar and concrete exposed to the hot, ashy winds.
And the sky was red.
Izuku Midoriya breathed it all in, choking on a lungful of smoke.
He sat on the roof of the school, gazing out at the carnage. He felt so incredibly numb, and yet… something in him ached. Deeply.
He wore his hero suit, just in case disaster struck. The metal of his gauntlets dug into his hands and the skin tight suit was sweaty and grimy. He missed being able to lounge in his T-shirt and gym shorts.
He missed a lot of things these days.
A moment of respite, is what All Might had told him. Rest. Recuperate. Ready yourself.
Izuku itched impatiently. He knew that every day that they rested and recuperated, people out there in that broken and burning city were dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He understood Kacchan a little better now.
It was later in the evening, and the sky was only getting redder and the winds colder. He kept telling himself that he’d go inside soon, just five more minutes, but Izuku knew that there was a solid chance he’d be dead in a few days.
Nevertheless, the sunset was beautiful.
After a while, Izuku heard the telltale explosions that betrayed Kacchan’s arrival on the roof.
“De…Izuku. There you are.”
“Hey, Kacchan.”
“Ochako’s looking for you, nerd. You’ve been gone all evening.”
“I know. Thanks.”
There was a beat of silence. Izuku expected to hear him leave again, but instead, Kacchan hesitantly sat down next to him.
“Whatcha thinking, dweebus.” He said.
Izuku looked at him. His face was glowing in the sunset and sweat, hair dirty with ash, eyes red-brimmed and calm, staring out at the city. Such a familiar face, such an unfamiliar expression. No disgust, no anger, no hatred. Just calm curiosity. He really wanted to know what Izuku was thinking.
“I dunno. Life, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
They were silent. There wasn’t really anything left to say that hadn’t already been said.
“I forgot to thank you, Kacchan,”
“For fucking what?”
“For your apology. I hope you know it wasn’t necessary, though, I…”
“Of course it was fucking necessary, you self-sacrificial asshole. What I did back then wasn’t right.”
“Kacchan… I forgave you a long time ago.”
Kacchan stared at Izuku for a moment. “Do you have any fucking standards?”
“Hey!”
Kacchan shoved his shoulder playfully and sighed.
While Kacchan was still as harsh, brave and brazen as ever in public or around the class, the past two weeks had showcased a newer, calmer Kacchan when it was just the two of them. Izuku could tell he felt more at ease.
He looked at Kacchan in a new way, too. This wasn’t Kacchan, his abrasive and mean ex-playmate, but rather Kacchan his best friend - willing to give out soft gazes and soft hands and soft words.
Izuku felt himself overcome with a strange emotion. So full of it, he felt his throat grate and his eyes burn, with something that wasn’t sadness, wasn’t anxiety, but…
He took fistfuls of Kacchan’s shirt, felt the warmth of his skin beneath the black and orange Lycra, and sobbed into his chest. He felt Kacchan stiffen in shock, but then, to Izuku’s surprise, he felt two large, warm, gloved hands rest on his head and back.
“You’re such a crybaby, Izuku,” Kacchan said, but there was no malice behind his words.
“I know,” Izuku laughed through his snot and tears, “I’m sorry,”
Izuku cried for what felt like forever, and Kacchan didn’t yell at him or shove him off. He just held him silently and let Izuku make a mess of his shirt.
Eventually Izuku had cried all the tears he had, and he rested his head in Kacchan’ slap like they had when they were kids.
“Do you remember when we used to watch those All Might compilations on YouTube together?” Izuku mumbled, words muffled by Kacchan’s tummy.
“Yeah.”
“I guess we don’t really need to do that anymore, ‘cause we have the real thing.”
Kacchan laughed.
“Speak for yourself, shitty nerd.”
“Kacchan! You still watch those compilations? And you call me an otaku!?”
Kacchan just laughed.
Izuku laughed too.
A moment passed.
“Kacchan,”
“Yeah?”
“You said, in your apology, I think, that you didn’t expect things to change between us,”
“Yeah.”
“I think they have. In a good way. I like how you act around me now.”
“Well, now I know you’re genuine, that you haven’t been mocking me for nine years…I might as well be genuine too. I feel like making up for lost time,”
Izuku buried his face deeper into Kacchan’s tummy, mostly out of embarrassment. Kacchan was never this honest with his feelings, and if Izuku was being true to himself, he was currently saying everything Izuku had ever wanted to hear from him.
“I do too, Kacchan.”
Izuku sat up and looked into Kacchan’s eyes. “I wanna have sleepovers every night, and binge watch All Might compilations, and come up with
Support items, and train with you, and do everything we’ve been missing out on!”
Kacchan sighed, but his expression was kind. He leaned forward and noogied Izuku’s head.
“You’re getting way too excited. You’re like a little nerdy kid.”
Izuku smiled.
The stars were coming out, but the sky was still lit on the horizon by burning buildings.
“Kacchan, if we make it out of this alive…”
“Of course we fuckin’ will,”
“…do you want to be hero partners?”
Kacchan looked shocked, and Izuku felt his heart sink.
“I know you’d have to give up your dream of being the solo at the number one spot, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, and actually never mind ‘cause it’s a stupid idea—”
“Shut up, shitty nerd. Of course I want to.”
“…What?”
“How else am I gonna keep a close eye on you? I need to beat you eventually.”
Izuku laughed.
“Kacchan & Deku; the… wait, what would be our gimmick?”
“We don’t need no fuckin’ gimmick. Only losers need a gimmick to be number one.”
“We still need a name though!”
“We can come up with one at one of your nerdy-ass sleepovers.”
“Aw, Kacchan! You mean it?”
“I always say what I mean!”
They laughed, together.
The air was getting a little colder, and eventually Kacchan suggested that they go to bed. They were getting up early to go on patrol, after all, and ‘he’d be damned if he found the nerd sleeping on the job’. When they got to Kacchan’s room, though, Izuku hesitated, and Kacchan seemed to read his mind, and he sighed begrudgingly.
“Fine, you damn nerd. Get in.”
They stripped off their gear and each took turns taking a shower in the ensuite. Kacchan gave Izuku a pair of boxers and an oversized T-shirt to wear, one that was worn andh soft and pilled and had a cracked All Might logo.
They got in Kacchan’s bed, and he turned out the lights.
Izuku lay there, awkwardly, sandwiched between Kacchan and the wall. The beds weren’t quite made for two people, and he could feel Kacchan’s back pressed against his side.
The night drew on, and he couldn't figure out if Kacchan had fallen asleep yet. Izuku could only think about the days to come, and his mind was racing with worst-case scenarios. In all of them, Kacchan died.
But his normal night-time anxiety was dulled somewhat by the fact that Kacchan was right there, beside him, and, at least for the night, very much alive.
Izuku turned to face his back. He watched his rib cage rise and fall in the dim light of the moon and the fires streaming through the crack in Kacchan’s blackout curtains.
“Kacchan,” he whispered. “Are you still awake?”
A few moments of silence, and then, in a groggy whisper; “Yeah. What?”
Izuku waited a little.
“Could you hold me?”
He expected Kacchan to laugh at him for acting like a baby, but, to his surprise, Kacchan wordlessly turned around to face him and snaked his arm around Izuku’s waist, pulling him tight so that Izuku’s face rested in the crook of Kacchan’s collarbone.
Izuku breathed deeply, and he smelled like smoke and his expensive sandalwood face cream. He held Kacchan back.
“Thanks.”
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
Izuku smiled. The world was big and scary, and getting bigger and scarier by the hour, and one day very soon he’d have to face it all and make his last stand - and there was a fairly big chance he wouldn’t live through it.
When the morning breached the horizon, they’d have to be heroes, but just for the night, just there, in Kacchan’s small dorm, under his navy-blue-and-red bedspread, they were just two teenage boys holding each other with a whole future ahead of them, and nothing more.